Direct Feed

When no one was going to pay for the public schools anymore and they were all like filled with guns and drugs and English teachers who were really pimps and stuff, some of the big media congloms got together and gave all this money and bought the schools so that all of them could have computers and pizza for lunch and stuff, which they gave for free, and now we do stuff in classes about how to work technology and how to find bargains and what's the best way to get a job and how to decorate our bedroom.

Titus, the narrator of MT Anderson's dystopian sci-fi YA novel Feed (Candlewick, 2002), is neurologically connected directly to consumerism-driven future version of the Internet. The feed looks up instantaneous answers to nearly every question he might ask, allows him a constant flow a chat with friends, and bombards him with target marketing ads. Titus doesn't read or write very well.

A number of things are disturbing about this book -  and good social satire should be disturbing. Teen expletive-infused language had not gotten any better in the 100 years or so in the future, and it is now also laced with advertising slogans. The kids don't talk about Coke, but always "the great taste of Coke." These are not rebellious teens. No fighting Big Brother for Titus and buddies. And Titus is not noble. As his girlfriend Violet become progressive less functional with her malfunctioning feed, he withdraws rather than comforts her. These kids act very much like today's kids - only more so.

People were really excited when they first came out with feeds. It was all da, da, da, this big educational thing, da, da, da, your child will have the advantage, encyclopedias at their fingertips, etc. That's one the great things about the feed - that you can be supersmart without ever working. Everyone is supersmart now, You can look things up automatic, like science and history, like if you want to know which battles of the Civil War George Washington fought in and shit.

This is not the world's best book, but it ought to be read by educational technology policy-makers. (I think I got the title from Jeff Utecht's blog. His wife made him read it as I remember.) The best science-fiction serves as a early warning system about a possible logical extension of today's trends. (See "Reading the Future.")

So don't say we haven't been warned.

I was staring at a girl's sweater. I couldn't like focus on the teacher. The teacher was a hologram that day. There had been some funding cuts. The school band was gone, and so were the alive teachers.

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It's been a crazy week here on Lake Jefferson. Big family to-do early in the week to celebrate my son's graduation from college, along with th grandsons and those older people who always seem to come with them visiting. The implementation of the student information system (Infinite Campus), installation of 62 more "smart" classrooms, and one-on-one training of teachers getting new computers has kept the office busy. Off to Houston tomorrow afternoon to do a day of workshops on Tuesday and then back to work preparing for teachers returning in full force next week.

How can August look so far away in June?

The family August 2008 (minus my brother and his clan)

Libraries for a post-literate society II

In last Wednesday's post, I began the argument that libraries, if they are to remain vital, need to recognize and support a "postliterate" user-base, defining...

the postliterate as those who can read, but chose to meet their primary information and recreational needs through audio, video, graphics and gaming.

What might be the hallmarks of a "postliterate" library? These come to mind...

1. PL libraries budget, select, acquire, catalog and circulate as many or more materials in non-print formats as they do traditional print materials. The circulation policy for all materials is similar.
2. PL libraries stock without prejudice age-appropriate graphic and audio-book novels and nonfiction for both informational and recreational use.
3. PL libraries support gaming for both instruction and recreation.
4. PL libraries purchase high-value electronic information resources.
5. PL libraries provide resources for patrons to create visual and auditory materials and promote the demonstration of  learning and research through original video, audio and graphics production - and physical spaces for the presentation of these creations.
   
6. PL libraries allow the use of personal communication devices (mp3 players, handhelds, laptops, etc.) and provide wireless network access for these devices.
7. PL library programs teach the critical evaluation of non-print information.
8. PL library programs teach the skills necessary to produce effective communication in all formats.
9. PL library programs accept and promote the use of non-print resources as sources for research and problem-based assignments.
10. PL librarians recognize the legitimacy of non-print resources, and promote their use without bias.

While I recognize this may look frightening, even culturally destructive, to many of us "print-bound" professionals, we cannot ignore the society of which we are a part - and are charged with supporting. I believe culture determines library programs, not that libraries create the culture.

School libraries are often the bellwether programs in their schools. If we as librarians support learning resources that are meaningful, useful and appealing to our students, so might the classroom teacher as well.

In Phaedrus, Plato decries an "alternate" communication technology:

The fact is that this invention [writing] will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it. They will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely on what is written, calling things to mind no longer from within themselves by their own unaided powers, but under the stimulus of external marks that are alien to themselves.

Plato might well approve of our return to the oral tradition – in its digital forms. But his quote also demonstrates that sometimes our greatest fears become our greatest blessings.

So what qualities do you believe define a postliterate library? A postliterate classroom? A postliterate school?

Libraries for a post-literate society I

First off let me just say that I've impressed the hell out myself with the title of this post. But I just can't think of another way to describe some thoughts I've been trying to organize for a while. Something less ostentatious will present itself eventually, I'm sure. - Doug

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“... the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” Steven Jobs

Next time you are returning to your seat from an airplane's bathroom, do a quick scan over the shoulders of seated  passengers. What are they doing?

If your observations are similar to mine, well over 50% of air travelers are listening to portable music devices, playing games on handhelds, working on presentation or spreadsheet files on laptops, or watching video on small players. Book readers today are the minority.

Any number of recent studies are concluding that reading is declining.1 Not just any reading, but reading of novels and longer works of nonfiction. A range of pundits are remarking that online reading is changing their personal reading behaviors.2 As the Job's quote above suggest, we are rapidly become a postliterate society.

Wikipedia describes a postliterate society as "a society wherein multimedia technology has advanced to the point where literacy, the ability to read written words, is no longer necessary."  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postliterate_society (Aug 10, 2008)

I would modify that definition and define the postliterate as those who can read, but chose to meet their primary information and recreational needs through audio, video, graphics and gaming. Print for the postliterate is relegated to brief personal messages, short informational needs, and other functional, highly pragmatic uses such as instructions, signage and organizational device entries or is highly supplemented by graphics. Their needs for extended works of information are met through visual and/or auditory formats.3

Postliteracy is impacting books themselves. How many citizens - already manga and illustrated novel fans - will learn about this year's presidential candidates from:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/07/mccain-and-obam.html

While many adults exhibit postliterate behaviors, the "Net Generation" is its poster child. And the poster child of the Net Gens is Jeremy from the popular comic strip Zits. A recent panel was illuminating:

Dad: Jeremy, let me tell you a little story about patience.
Jeremy: Is it long? Can you just give me the bullet points? Or maybe the highlights? A short synopsis would probably be more effective.

And the last panel concludes...

Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman 8/05/08 <http://www.arcamax.com/zits/s-386501-750305>

The term “postliterate library” may at first look seem like an oxymoron. But it is not. Our best libraries are already postliterate, increasingly serving sets of users who communicate, recreate and learn using media other than print. And the attitude we as professional librarians adopt toward the postliterate may well determine whether our libraries continue to exist.

Education and librarianship has a bias toward print. This communication/information format that has served society well and in which most professionals now demonstrate high levels of proficiency is expected to be vociferously defended. Most of my fellow professionals are in the same straights that I find myself - a competent reader, writer and print analyist but neophyte video, audio and graphic producer, consumer and critic. And it is human nature to be dismissive of those competencies which we ourselves lack.

But I would argue that postliteracy may be a return to more natural forms of communication - speaking, storytelling, dialogue, debate, and dramatization. It is just now that these modes can be captured and stored digitally as (or more) easily as writing. And  information, emotion and persuasion may be even more powerfully conveyed in multi-media formats. 

What do you see as critical attributes of a library that serves a postliterate clientele?

In the next post, I'll share some of your ideas and mine about postlieracy and its impact on our resources, our programs, and our curricula.

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1. These include:

National Endowment for the Arts  "Reading at Risk" report, 2004 <www.arts.gov/pub/readingatrisk.pdf> 

Michael Rogers "What is the worth of word? Will it matter if people can’t read in the future?"  <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14823087/from/ET/>

2. These include:

Naomi Baron  “Killing the written word by snippets” (Los Angles Times, Nov 28, 2005) <http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/28/opinion/oe-baron28>

Mark Baurlein The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)

Nicholas Carr "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" <http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google>

Maggie Jackson Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.

Lee Siegel Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob.

Motoko Rich "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? New York Times, July 27, 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?ref=education>

3. This differs from aliteracy in that the demand for information and new learning is present, only met in other means than print. Aliteracy simply means choosing not to read.